”1-10-10” marked the coming of age of terrorism in Nigeria. It has thus become our own “9-11”. As the nation grieves over the loss of both dear life and the innocence of the virgin Federal Capital city, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the determined effort of the government to use the incident to settle political scores with the opposition. I would have thought that after the overwhelming failure of the security services in the stupendous last one week, someone should have come forward with an apology a long list of resignations. Instead, the Jonathan/Sambo Campaign has been issuing subterranean political threats that hint of a
nervousness and desperation to do just anything to make candidate Jonathan have a free pass to 2011.
“Security services don’t have to wait to be told what to do,” the campaign said early last week, meaning it’s time to embark on a crack down. A few hours after the tragic serial bomb blasts that blew away the 50th anniversary celebrations, the campaign group showed a rare insight into the incident by dismissing the claim by Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) that they bombed Abuja as a fluke.
The bombing according to Jonathan/Sambo Campaign is definitely the handiwork of the political opposition and that MEND is being used as a diversion. Really? MEND a smokescreen, when they posted a warning that they’d bomb the event five days earlier; repeated the warning a few hours to the incident in a letter to Nigerians in which they asked for the evacuation of Eagle Square by 10:30am?
The President whose candidacy is already a potent and a divisive issue grabbed the headlines on his own merit by his outlandish claim that the dastardly act had nothing to do with Niger Delta and that it was an act by foreign terrorists. Am I the only one shocked by his absolution of his Niger Delta people from complicity in the 1-10-10 bombing? President Jonathan’s incredible explanation was that MEND could not have bombed Abuja with himself a Niger Deltan as President. In effect, he meant to say with the type of community support he enjoyed back at home, nothing of this type of embarrassment could come to him from the Niger Delta. What would Jonathan make of the fact that former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan’s home in the village was bombed and destroyed to its foundation two years ago?
By crying aloud that terrorists, not MEND did this, what message was the President sending to the western countries that only a while ago delisted Nigeria from countries marked as promoting terrorism7
From the point of view of a Kano man, the President’s verdict that Niger Delta was free of all blames and that (opposition) politicians were culpable is not only shocking and outrageous but also unbelievable. This is the nearest anybody had come to repeating the historical faux-pax the late MKO Abiola made, accusing the North of being responsible for the annulment of his election.
Free Bode George Now!
A litmus test of the war against corruption in Nigeria is the trial of Bodunde Adeyanju, the Personal Assistant of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Bodunde, according to the Attorney-General is to go on trial this week for collecting six million US Dollars bribery from the contractors Halliburton.
It is a trial that will test the Goodluck Jonathan government to its limits. In the view of many, it is Obasanjo, not Bodunde that should be in the dock. Did the government not say that they want to make Nigeria a country in which an impartial law prevails?
It seems plainly odd, even as we celebrate this trial that the principle of vicarious responsibility in law is being stood on its head. If a principal is responsible for the action of his agent, why is that not the case in the matter of Halliburton bribery? Who is Bodunde to be paid Six Million US Dollars and for what reason if not for the fact that he represented the former Head of State?
Bodunde’s trial is the clearest indication by the government that its war against corruption is limited in approach and scope; that they can’t mouth hot political potatoes at this stage and that is precisely why houseboys are being arrested and tried in place of their masters. If this happens to be the new rule, they should let go the demi-god of South-West PDP, Bode George, Aminu Dabo and all those others jailed for similar offences. They too have cooks and cleaners in their employment that can replace them.
Ribadu Joins “Alliance of the Corrupt”
The Hausa have a proverb, which is that when you stool under a tree, you cannot remain there to enjoy its shade.
One of the under-told stories of the former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mallam Nuhu Ribadu was about the way and manner he danced to the tunes of President Obasanjo to scuttle opposition parties to ensure a free pass to the Yar’Adua/Jonathan ticket in 2007.
In an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) which was transcribed and published by the local press in 2007, the then EFCC Chairman branded the hard-fighting opposition Action Congress as the “Alliance of the Corrupt”. He lampooned the party and its membership as being made up of “thieves” who would not be allowed to get away with their loot.
Who would ever have thought that four years on that Nuhu Ribadu, out of power and out of job will be seeking the platform of the AC to actualise a barely hidden, vaulting ambition to become President?
Between AC (ACN?) and Ribadu, what is it that changed between then and now?
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